At the Tibbetts Family Ice Cream Parlor, inside the Chippewa Valley Museum, families can order ice cream sodas made just as they were in Grandma's day.

The ice cream parlor is open for business 1-5 pm any day the museum is open, and for those visiting the parlor only, the museum admission fee is waived.

Besides being a favorite final stop on a museum visit, the parlor is a popular place for birthday parties and similar events. For information about reserving the parlor, call Dorie Boetcher at the museum, (715) 834-7871, or email her: d.boetcher@cvmuseum.com

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From 1912 to 1922, the museum’s marble soda fountain was used at Dor Smith’s, an ice cream parlor and tobacco shop, located at 124 S. Barstow St., Eau Claire.

In 1922, Alfred Bjerke bought it and moved it to his drug store in Fall Creek. In furnishing his store with the soda fountain, Bjerke’s timing was most favorable. Ice cream parlors flourished during Prohibition, as socially acceptable gathering places.

The Bjerke family used the fountain for the next half-century and donated it to the Chippewa Valley Museum in 1977.

Dor Smith’s, 124 S. Barstow Street, Eau Claire, between 1900 and 1910. This is a view of the tobacco shop, with the parlor barely visible in the back.

Above: three views of the Ice Cream Parlor, open 1-5 pm any day the museum is open.

Bottom: Bjerke Drug Store, Fall Creek, August 1958. Alfred Bjerke, a registered pharmacist, bought Hoehn’s Pharmacy in Fall Creek in 1922, and furnished it with the marble countertop, barely visible at right, from Dor Smith’s in Eau Claire. After Alfred’s death in 1959, his wife Elsie ran the store herself. The Bjerke’s son Paul continued to manage the store until 1977, when it closed.